ARTIST BIO

Sara M. Zak is a Western New York visual artist specializing in oil painting and ephemeral, interactive installations. Sara’s recent work explores the shifting nature of time, place, concept, actuality, and materials. Her perception of the all too quick passage of time and the intangibility of memory amplified by motherhood and her own father’s untimely death manifests itself in both the artist's process and her materials.  Her perception of the all too quick passage of time and the intangibility of memory manifests itself as she watches her two children grow.  Staying intensely present in both art-making and family is a constant, but required, balancing act. 

 

 Sara exhibits frequently; her work is in private collections across the country and has been acquired by the Burchfield Penney Art Center and Roswell Park Cancer Center in Buffalo.  Her work from Buffalo's Cecily Brown mural is in the collections ofThe Albright-Knox-Gundlach Art Museum and The University of Buffalo. Sara was honored to be named a 2023 NYSCA Individual Artist Grant Reciepent for 2023 and fall 2014 finalist for the Sustainable Arts Foundation Award in San Francisco.  In 2011, Sara founded the grassroots artists’ initiative Painting for Preservation in 2011.  She teaches regular painting workshops, is a NYFA Mark alumnus, and holds an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Buffalo and degrees in Painting, Art History and Education from SUNY College at Buffalo Buffalo.  She teaches drawing, painting, color theory, and two-dimensional design at Villa Maria College and SUNY Fredonia.